


The Bridger Extraction

by minnabird



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Never Met, Escape, For a fic about Project Harvester this turned out pretty light though, Gen, Imperial Cadet Ezra Bridger, Misfits and Outsiders, Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange, Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange 2020, Podfic Welcome, Project Harvester, Training, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25624030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: Something is wrong at Arkanis Academy.Sixteen-year-old Ezra Bridger has a long list of black marks on his disciplinary and academic records. The last thing he expects is to be transferred to an elite Imperial academy. His life gets even more complicated when he’s put in a special class led by a mysterious man known as the Fourth Brother.Sabine Wren has been sent to infiltrate the academy, following rumors of disappearing students. In a universe where Ezra wasn’t on Lothal to meet the Spectres, fate still brings them together.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Sabine Wren
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35
Collections: Phoenix Nest Summer Exchange 2020





	The Bridger Extraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KitePiper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitePiper/gifts).



The hum of the climate control unit behind him was comforting. Drowned out his thoughts. Ezra pressed his shoulders back against it and breathed.

“Admission to the academy on Arkanis is an honor,” the commandant had said, looking Ezra over skeptically. “Many of the Empire’s brightest officers were educated at Arkanis. If you succeed there, you might join them.” His lip curled. “Pack your things, Bridger. You leave at oh-eight hundred tomorrow.”

It wasn’t the transfer that bothered him. He had been there before, shuttled from the Egon Plains school on Lothal to the service academy on Garel to here. What scared him was what his new instructors would expect of him.

They must have made a mistake. He was top of his class in the simulation exercises, but bottom in just about everything else. His disciplinary record was exemplary, an instructor had once quipped, in the sense that it provided an excellent example for what not to do. He didn’t try to draw notice; he tried to keep his head down, actually. He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut when an instructor was unfair, or someone was trying to push one of the younger kids around. He started fights. He snuck out of dorms and onto rooftops or out into the grounds.

“You can’t mess this one up,” he told himself. He was sixteen now: old enough for the senior academies, and old enough to get into real trouble if he stepped too far out of line. 

This time, he really would keep his head down.

* * *

Everywhere Ezra looked on the transport, there were other cadets. It made him feel crowded and itchy. Once panic started to clutch at his throat, he went in search of the fresher and just took a few minutes to breathe. He didn’t really fit into the vents anymore, which was a shame.

When he emerged, he found a girl standing with arms crossed against the wall. She was a little older than him, he thought, with golden-brown skin and short hair that fell in a dark swoop along one side of her face. Her expression, her stance, everything, was carefully casual. 

“Hey,” he said cautiously.

“Hey,” the girl said. “You’re heading to Arkanis, right?”

He’d thought everyone was. He shrugged. “Yeah. You?” 

“I am. Ria Talla.” She held out her hand. Ezra shook it.

“Ezra Bridger,” he said. “See you around.” He gave a little wave, then moved on down the corridor, not eager to stick around to talk just yet.

Something was off about her. Living as an Imperial ward in the academies, you started to get a sense of who was safe, who belonged and who didn’t. She had all the confidence of someone who did well and whom Ezra should avoid, but his instincts told him she didn’t fit. 

He turned to look over his shoulder, but she was already gone.

“Huh,” he said to himself.

* * *

“Ezra!”

Ezra looked up in surprise, then grinned. “Kali! No kidding, you ended up here, too?”

Kali pushed her bright red hair out of her face and grinned as she reached him. She was short and slight — last time Ezra had seen her, they were about the same height, but he’d shot up a lot since then. “Been a long time since Garel. It’s good to see you again.” She glanced left and right, then gave him a quick hug.

The mess hall was bustling. His cohort had finished processing just in time for lunch, right on schedule. Kali led him into the queue for food and steered him away from the greens. “Overboiled,” she said. “Every time. Believe me, you do not want.”

“Supplements it is, then,” Ezra said wryly.

Kali shuddered. “Do you think it’ll be better in the Army?”

They exchanged looks, and Kali laughed softly. 

They found an empty spot and settled across from each other. Just as they were digging in, someone thumped onto the bench beside Ezra. “Is this seat taken?” Ria said.

“Do you see anyone in it?” Ezra said, his tone not unfriendly. 

“Just me,” Ria said. She reached across to shake Kali’s hand as they introduced themselves. 

“Are you sure you want to sit with us?” Kali said. “You might want to get a head start on meeting the people at your level. Cliques form fast.”

“I talked to a few people on the ship,” Ria said. She raised her hand, and a boy with dark brown skin and hair shaved close to his head joined them. Two people Kali knew showed up as well, and somewhat to his surprise, Ezra found himself eating with a chatty group.

Ria’s friend was Mikkel. Like Ria, he’d been tapped late to fill in a vacancy, an unexpected but exciting opportunity. Turnover during the last year of training at Arkanis could be brutal, Kali explained. There was very little margin for error, because Arkanis strove to turn out only exceptional officers. Ria treated her transfer casually, like something expected. Mikkel was quiet. Ezra couldn’t tell if it was thoughtfulness or nervousness. 

Kali had been here the longest; she had transferred in early, during second term last year. Her friends had started at the traditional time, the beginning of this year’s first term. 

Kali’s friend Moira broke into her explanation. “We just had mid-terms,” she told Mikkel, who had set down his fork even though there was plenty of food on his plate. “Same as you; we work on the same curriculum as the other academies. It’ll be harder here, but you wouldn’t be here if your marks weren’t up to scratch.”

Ezra kept quiet. His weren’t, and he knew it. Mikkel didn’t comment, either, just grimly tucked into his food again. 

Another new and exciting place to fail all his classes.

* * *

They slept four to a room here. There were two sets of bunks, four desks, and shared freshers down the hall. He couldn’t decide if the smaller rooms were better or worse than the long open dormitories he was used to.

His roommates didn’t talk to him. This was almost the best-case scenario.

Arkanis actually had a decent system for getting transfer students oriented and integrated into their classes, Ezra would give them that. He appreciated not being thrown directly into the deep end for once. It didn’t help, of course. Ezra just couldn’t get his brain to take everything in, to put the right things down on test papers, to put together a fast answer when called on in class. He’d given up on really trying a long time ago.

Training exercises were a different matter. Unlike the academic classes, they didn’t train only with students in their age group. The entire cohort that had entered the academy at mid-term trained together. 

Ezra had never seen a training facility like Arkanis Academy’s. The first time his cohort entered the antechamber, training officers walked down the line, giving them each an assignment. “Blue Soldier,” the officer told Ezra. “Line up at door two.” 

They ended up with two large groups lined up at the doors, and two groups of three taking lift platforms to a second level.

An officer stepped out into the middle of the antechamber, halfway between the groups, and raised his voice. “Listen up, soldiers! You will take a helmet on your way in. Whatever orders come through your helmet units, you will follow them. Your officers have been chosen from your number, and they will make the decisions. It is your job to stay alive, work together, and achieve your side’s objective. Am I clear?”

The room rang with the cadets’ “Sir, yes, sir!”

They filed down a long hall, pulling cadet-style helmets off of racks as they passed them. When Ezra shoved his on, it smelled faintly of disinfectant. When they stepped into the training room, it was pitch dark, their footsteps echoing in a vast space. Then, there was a grinding noise, and Ezra stumbled as the ground beneath him shifted. Lights came up, and Ezra blinked.

He was at the lip of a canyon. There was no color, but there was convincing scrubby vegetation and a treacherous climb if they wanted to get to the bottom. Caves dotted the opposite side.

“Team Blue, this is your commanding officer speaking,” came a familiar voice in his ear. Ria Talla, as full of confidence as ever. “Here’s what I want you to do…”

What followed was the best game of Ezra’s life, and the closest thing to real battle he had ever seen. They had training blasters that lit up spots on their armor when the beams connected. Trainers told them when a hit took them out, and downed soldiers stayed where they were. Team Red was dug into one of the cliff caves, and Blue was tasked with capturing them. 

Ria split their force into three groups. One fired on the front of the cave; another scouted escape routes and settled in to cut them off; and a third made its way into the cave system itself.

It was a gamble. There was no reason to expect that simulated caves would have anything like the complexity of a real landscape. But they had been given handheld interfaces to use that would give them the same information that real scanners would in this situation, so Ria directed them to try them out. Ezra was in the small group that broke through a back entrance and pushed Team Red into the arms of the force outside.

Victory was sweet. Ezra liked a good competition.

* * *

In some ways, Arkanis was just like any other Imperial school. The misfits found each other.

Not everyone who was in an Imperial school wanted to be there. Wards of the Empire — children too young to be prosecuted alongside treasonous parents, orphans from Core Worlds with no family to take them — were placed in the academy system until they were of age, at which time they could either join the military or get tossed out on their own.

No one ever talked about it, but after a while you could spot the signs in others. Some never talked about home, and some talked about home too much. Sometimes they kept their heads down in morale sessions, sometimes they cheered the loudest. They sniffed each other out, found ways to stick close, found ways to ask without asking.

At Arkanis, they found a study room and claimed it. Between dinner and lights-out, there was a study session that was more of an informal get-together, people flowing in and out as they pleased. Ezra learned a new style of pazaak from Moira, who kept several decks on hand; Ria offered mathematics and science help to all comers; the second week, Kali somehow obtained and shared a bag full of contraband lemon cakes. Mikkel showed up every night and studied quietly in the corner, but when Kali left a lemon cake at his elbow, he smiled at her and ate it.

The third week, just when everyone was starting to feel settled into their new routine, Ezra was pulled into the dormitory director’s office. Colonel Ryse looked up from her datapad when he entered and set it aside. Beside her stood a tall figure dressed in grey and black: not an officer’s uniform he recognized, but clearly a uniform of some kind. He was human, with long, dark hair that fell loose over his shoulders and eerie, piercing yellow eyes.

The temperature in the room dropped the moment the man looked at Ezra. He straightened nervously and fixed his eyes on Ryse. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Bridger,” Ryse said. “You have been selected for a special training class, and your new instructor wished to meet you. This is the Fourth Brother.”

The Fourth Brother pushed away from the wall and stepped forward to look Ezra over, standing so close that Ezra had to crane his neck to meet his eyes. He felt the silent scrutiny to his bones, and he swallowed dryly. At last, in a whispery voice, the man said, “You will receive instructions as to where and when we meet. Do not be late.”

“Yes, sir,” Ezra said, hearing the shake in his voice, though he tried to push bravado into it. 

“Dismissed,” came the silvery reply, and Ezra backed out of the office with relief.

The class wasn’t in the same wing as the others, or even in the training facility. There was a tunnel to a separate building, and an intimidatingly intense security check to get through it. The guard asked his name, ran his ident, and even required a palm scan. The unease sitting in Ezra’s chest coiled tighter. What was this? Some kind of secret ops thing? You heard rumors, of course, but nothing solid. Anyway, he was sixteen; didn’t you need to be proven for that kind of thing?

The room they met in was made entirely of a glassy black material — the walls, floors, and ceilings looked like slick ink, broken only by snaking lines of inset blue-white lights. Several others were already waiting, sitting or standing in groups. Most of them he recognized only vaguely from the hallways. He was relieved when he spotted Mikkel, sitting alone against a side wall. 

Ezra hunkered down beside Mikkel. “Hey,” he said under his breath. “You know what this special class is?”

Mikkel shook his head, and Ezra looked at him more closely. His face was always hard to read, but his hands were a dead giveaway. Right now, they were clenched tightly together in his lap, the thumb on the outside quivering slightly. “It’ll be fine,” Ezra said, falling back instinctively on bluster. “It’s a good thing, right? They, uh…they want us to further our skills.”

“Precisely.” The room fell dead silent around the quiet word. Ezra turned in horror, realizing suddenly that his voice had risen above the quiet murmur of the others’ conversation and that, without anyone noticing him, the Fourth Brother had stepped into the room. “You have all been chosen because you exhibit a certain…potential. With time and training, that potential might become strength.”

The Fourth Brother stalked through the middle of the room, charting a straight line through the haphazard clusters of students. He settled elegantly onto the floor, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knees. The students shifted, copying him. “We begin with a simple meditation.”

It was the strangest class of Ezra’s experience in the academies. With the Fourth Brother’s voice curling through the room, they learned the basics of meditation and a visualization exercise that Ezra didn’t like at all. _Feel the blood pounding inside you. Let it carry strength from your heart to your core, to your arms, to your legs._ Ezra’s hands shook and his skin buzzed for the rest of the day, and he still was no closer to understanding what the Fourth Brother wanted from them.

* * *

Within a month, everyone at Arkanis knew that Ria Talla planned on making it to the top.

She didn’t say it outright, but her brash confidence was soon backed up by exemplary performance both in academics and training exercises. When the marks for their first exam went up on the boards outside the mess, she waited until the crowd had dispersed and noted her perfect score with a brisk nod of acceptance. Whispers followed her to training, where she was cycled between soldier and command roles. The changing roles were a good thing: the academy wanted well-rounded officers who could both understand high-level strategy and perform well on a battlefield. Training was the testing ground.

Ezra didn’t worry about it too much at first. After that first class with Fourth Brother, things only got weirder. He was teaching them about something called the Force—a well of power he was training them to access. For the first few classes, it was just sitting and breathing and visualizing, and Ezra spent those hours restless and the evenings after itchy and off-kilter. “If you can master this,” Fourth Brother said, “you may be able to learn deeper secrets. To sense that which you cannot see, to inflict pain or discover truths, to move things without touching them.”

And what if they couldn’t master this? Ezra wondered. He was afraid if he asked, he really wouldn’t like the answer. The Fourth Brother also impressed them with the secrecy of the knowledge he was imparting. Masters of the Force could go far in service of the Empire, he said, but its mysteries must be strictly controlled. 

It didn’t matter, because Ezra’s mind suddenly grasped the first lesson, and he choked down a gasp as power filled his muscles. He felt like he could punch through a wall. Climb a building with his bare hands. As suddenly as it had come, the unnatural strength left him, and he opened his eyes to find the Fourth Brother’s face inches from his own. 

The man’s mouth curled in a smile that looked more like a snarl. “Very good,” he hissed.

Two days later, Ezra found himself facing off against Ria on the training field. They had been put on opposite teams, Ezra’s defending, Ria’s attacking. Ezra was one of his team’s lookouts, guarding an approach his commander didn’t really expect anyone to take. 

Ria did love the unexpected.

Ezra almost went down before he noticed her; it was just luck that he felt a prickle on the back of his neck and ducked just as she sent a training bolt his way. He rammed into her, getting her arm in a hold and trying to knock the blaster out of her hands. She turned the hold against him and threw him to the ground. Ezra ground his teeth as his blaster went skidding away. “Command, this is Bridger, we’re under…” 

He rolled as she aimed her blaster again, seeing the blue light of the false bolt flash past him. She was fighting for keeps, and under his frustration, something wilder kicked in. Without thinking about it, he reached for the Force. When he lunged to his feet again, it was with that feral strength fueling his movements. She gave a cry of surprise as he took her down and slammed the blaster out of her hands. “Karabast,” he heard her say. She fumbled at her hands — what was she doing? — and then reached out, the fingers of her right hand splayed.

The blaster skidded across the ground and slammed into the palm of her hand.

She wrapped her fingers around the blaster and raised it.

His vision lit up blue as the training bolt marked him dead.

Ezra slumped back against the ground, wrung-out and confused. What had just happened? One of the trainers came over and held out a hand to Ezra. “Do you need medical?” she asked. 

“I’m good. I’m good,” Ezra said, accepting the hand up.

He turned his head, watching Ria as she ran off towards his team’s position. The Fourth Brother’s voice floated through his head: _to move things without touching them._ Was that what she had done?

* * *

Sabine Wren had spent the past month trying very hard to get noticed by the Empire.

This wasn’t her usual style, but she had seen the fear in Kanan’s eyes while they discussed this job. Whatever was happening to kids who disappeared from Arkanis Academy, they needed to get to the bottom of it. Kanan had pulled her aside after one of those talks. 

He looked down at her, a furrow between his brows. “Can you build something to make it look like you sensed something behind you, or moved something you couldn’t reach?” The words came reluctantly, as if he didn’t want even her to know what he was asking.

“Yeah,” Sabine said.

“Can you do it with whatever you can get at the academy?” 

Sabine thought about it. “Yeah, I can think of a few possibilities.”

Kanan hadn’t wanted to send her into this in the first place. He and Hera had argued about it, and Sabine had settled the matter by declaring she would do it with or without an extraction team. Now, he looked at her, his eyes troubled. “Do it,” he said. “Make it look natural when you use it, like a last resort. And make sure someone sees.”

They didn’t talk about what it meant, that Kanan thought looking like a Jedi would help her figure this out.

Rigging up what Kanan had asked for had been child’s play, even with limited resources. It was just a simple electromagnet hidden in her glove. Couple of bits and bobs, wire, a power source. Choosing her timing was the hardest part. She had wanted to be sure there was something fishy happening before she brought out the big guns. Then, Ezra and Mikkel had started disappearing twice a week and coming back looking haunted.

Her team won the training exercise, and Sabine kept waiting for something to happen. None of the trainers pulled her aside, and she went back to the dorms frustrated. 

A whispery voice stopped her on her way to lunch the next day. “Cadet Talla.”

She stopped and turned to look at the speaker. He was creepy, all right. Those yellow eyes seemed to stare into her soul. She saluted, even though he wasn’t wearing a regulation uniform. “You will join my class tonight,” he said. “Details will be sent to your personal datapad.”

“So this is where you’ve been going,” Sabine murmured to Mikkel as she settled next to him. He jumped, then looked at her wide-eyed. “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing here, either,” she said dryly. “Want to fill me in?”

She looked up as Ezra stepped in the door, saw her, did a double-take, then made a beeline for the two of them. He sat beside her and leaned in to mutter, uncharacteristically subtle, “I was wondering if you were going to show up.”

“No one told me what I’m showing up for. A class?”

“We’re learning to use the Force,” Ezra said. “Like you did the other day, right?”

“You’re all Force-users?” she whispered, looking around the room. There were seven kids here, not including herself. 

“I think we’re all still proving we’re Force-users?” Ezra said. “We’re still kind of on the basics.”

Spectre cell had saved Force-sensitive kids in the past. She should have recognized the look of an Inquisitor: Kanan and Fulcrum had fought them a few times. If even a fraction of these kids were strong with the Force, then Sabine had to get them out of here. 

A hush fell, and Sabine realized the Inquisitor had stepped into the room. “You’ve had two weeks to absorb our first lesson,” he said. “Who would like to catch Cadet Talla up on what she missed?” His eyes fell on Ezra. “Not you, Bridger. Today, we are going to work on your senses.”

Sabine wanted to keep an eye on Ezra, but apparently being taught how to use the Force involved a lot of sitting still with your eyes closed. She listened instead and caught only snatches of what Ezra and the Fourth Brother were doing. “Keep your eyes closed,” the Inquisitor hissed, and then she heard a yelp from Ezra. It was more indignant than pained, though, so she stayed where she was.

Later that night, Sabine snuck onto the roof. The security on the comms inside the complex was unusually tight, but they’d left the arrays that carried their signals almost unprotected. Sabine wired her own unit into the comms array and waited for the _Ghost_ to pick up.

“ _Ghost_ to Spectre-5,” came Hera’s voice, and Sabine sighed in relief.

“This is Spectre-5. I’ve got something. Can we add a group of cadets to the pickup?”

“Depends. Can you find me a clear landing spot?”

“The parade ground at night. This isn’t a pilot training academy, and the Commandant keeps his Star Destroyer parked on the other side of the complex. It’ll take them a couple of minutes to get mobilized once they realize you’re here.”

“Okay. Any other complications to look out for?”

Sabine listed what defenses she knew about, and then hesitated. “And there’s…I think there’s an Inquisitor here. I haven’t seen a lightsaber, but he has creepy eyes like the other ones, and he knows about the Force.”

“Copy that.” Hera’s voice was grim. “Tomorrow night too soon to get your cadets together?”

Sabine thought a moment. “No. I think I can handle tomorrow night.”

“Looking forward to our rendezvous, then. _Ghost_ out.”

When Sabine went back to the roof access, she came face to face with Ezra Bridger. Her instincts screamed at her to neutralize him, even if he was getting to be a friend. She quashed them. “Hey, Ezra. You needed some fresh air, too?”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “That looked like more than breathing. What are you up to?”

Sabine shifted her stance, ready to fight if she needed to. She took a leap of faith. “Planning an escape. You in?”

His eyes went wide, and then he grinned. “What do you need?”

The next morning, just as the academy was waking up, a message popped up on the datapads of every cadet in the Fourth Brother’s class. The message also went out to Kali, Moira, and the other members of the misfits study group, at Ezra’s insistence. _Mandatory mouse party in study room 3141 at 20:00. Don’t be late._

“What’s a mouse party?” Sabine had asked, looking over Ezra’s shoulder. 

“A secret meeting,” Ezra said. “You know, like quiet as a mouse?”

“Huh. We used to call them radar tune-ups,” Sabine said.

Ezra hesitated, his finger hovering over the screen. “You think we should add that? I’ve never heard that one.”

“Nah,” Sabine said, internally cursing the slip-up. Ria Talla had spent the last few years in the academy system. Her slang should not be outdated. “You know better what people here would understand. You think they’ll all come?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ezra said.

Sabine didn’t have a good enough read on the cadets in the Force-training class to know if any of them would report the party. She just had to place her hope in the short timing. That evening, she and Ezra opened up the study room in question—it was a different one from their normal meetings. They didn’t want to get bystanders involved, and people sometimes joined them for tutoring or cards. 

The tension in her muscles ratcheted up as, one by one, the cadets they had contacted showed up. By five minutes past, they were only missing two people. 

“Does anyone know where they might be?” Sabine asked.

One of the cadets, a shy girl named Aysha, raised her hand. “Do you want me to get them? They needed to study.”

“This is more important than studying,” Sabine said firmly.

The room filled with whispers after Aysha ducked out. Mikkel made his way through the crowd and leaned on the wall beside Sabine. “You’re making a lot of noise for someone who just got here,” Mikkel observed quietly.

“Believe me, I’m about to make more,” Sabine muttered back.

When everyone she had invited was present, an uneasy hush fell over the crowd. Sabine straightened her shoulders, and every eye turned to her. “Hi. I think I’ve met all of you, but I’m going to reintroduce myself. My name is Sabine Wren, I’m with the Rebellion, and you’re all in danger.”

Instantly, pandemonium broke out. Ezra slid in front of the door, stubbornly blocking it. Half a dozen people loudly asked her questions at the same time. Sabine put her fingers to her lips and let out a sharp whistle. The noise abated enough for her to get a word in. “Thank you,” she said. “That was the bad news. The good news is that we’re about to get you out of danger. If you will all come very calmly and quietly with me to the parade ground, I’ve arranged a pickup.”

“What if we don’t want to go?” came a voice from the middle of the group. It was a square-faced boy Sabine vaguely remembered from the class.

“I’m afraid I can’t leave any of you in this room to raise the alarm,” Sabine said pleasantly. “But we’ll be happy to drop you off somewhere you can call for a ride back.”

“So you’re going to just kidnap us?” Aysha said in a small voice.

Sabine looked at her. “If you want to be here, then yeah, I guess that’s what we’re doing. But no one is going to hurt you, and I almost guarantee you that if you stay you will be hurt.” The crowd was shifting around the dissenters. Kali and Moira locked eyes, then each wrapped a hand around an arm of the boy who had spoken up.

“Let’s go, then,” Kali said. Together, they shoved the boy towards the door. The rest of the group fell in after them, and Ezra opened the door and stood aside.

“This is going to get out of control fast,” Mikkel said.

His prediction came true just as the group hit the parade ground. Sabine didn’t have to scan the skies for the incoming _Ghost_ : she could clearly see the ship weaving between a pair of TIE fighters. They must have run into a patrol. She growled under her breath, then started herding the others towards the other end of the ground. “The more space we put between us and the building, the better,” she said. “We’re not going to have a lot of time to get in.”

Over the trees, there was a bright burst of light, and pieces of burning TIE fighter fell onto the forest like rain. The _Ghost_ and the remaining TIE whirled through the sky together, laser fire drawing streaks through the dark sky. Finally, the TIE fell back, smoking, and the _Ghost_ careened towards the lawn.

Sabine didn’t wait for her to land. She started running, physically pushing the others towards the ship. “Go, go, go!” she shouted, and the _Ghost_ hove towards the ground, boarding ramp already open and facing towards them. Kanan and Zeb were waving frantically from the top of the ramp.

The first of the group had reached the ramp and was climbing aboard when a familiar hollow hiss sounded behind her. Sabine turned and saw the Fourth Brother, one half of his saber lit, casting sickly red light over his pallid face. “Kanan!” she yelled, hands automatically reaching for blasters she hadn’t carried in over a month. She cast a desperate look over her shoulder, and Kanan leapt, the Force carrying him in an impossible arc over the heads of the escaping cadets. He landed lightly beside her and lit his lightsaber in the same movement.

“My belt,” Kanan said, keeping his eyes on the advancing Inquisitor. Sabine glanced down and realized he’d brought her blasters. The Fourth Brother laughed, and the sound sent a shiver down Sabine’s spine. She darted forward, pulling the blasters from their holsters and squaring up beside Kanan.

“A brave show,” the Fourth Brother said, advancing. “But you won’t be getting away.” He wound his arm back, the hissing saber held aloft. What came next happened almost too fast for Sabine to follow. The Inquisitor threw his lightsaber; mid-air, the second blade ignited, and it spun in a deadly arc towards Kanan. Kanan sprang into the air, flipping over the lightsaber’s trajectory, and by the time he landed, the Inquisitor was behind them. He reached out a hand, and the lightsaber smacked into his grip. “Too slow,” he said, and took off towards the _Ghost_.

Sabine and Kanan gave chase, Sabine’s blaster bolts nipping at the Inquisitor’s heels and slowing him as he was forced to deflect a few. The last cadet had just stepped onto the ramp and he turned to look back. Sabine recognized Ezra, his eyes round and wild. The Fourth Brother ignored the ramp. In one powerful leap, he made it on top of the _Ghost_ , grinning as he gripped his lightsaber and drove one of the blades down towards an engine. 

The _Ghost_ shuddered, and then bucked. The Inquisitor lost his footing for a crucial moment, and the lightsaber only snaked a trail of sparks along the hull. Kanan followed him up onto the ship, and their blades met at last with a vicious hum.

“Come on, Sabine!” Ezra yelled from the ramp. When she was less than a meter away, she took a running leap, grabbing onto anything she could and clawing her way inside the ship. 

“Thanks, kid,” she gasped at Ezra, but she didn’t stop. She ran straight for the laser turret, slinging herself into the chair. She reached out and found the emergency headset.

“Spectre-1, get back in here,” Hera was saying, her voice just short of a yell.

“Working on it,” Kanan gritted back. There was silence again, and then a few seconds later. “Okay, I’m in, but we’re gonna have to shake off one angry Inquisitor.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Hera said, and the _Ghost_ swooped upwards and into a series of rolls, leaving Sabine’s stomach well behind. She found herself laughing and whooping in sheer relief. “Spectre-5, welcome back,” Hera’s warm voice came a second later. “Now help me carve a path out of here.”

* * *

Luckily, it wasn’t up to Sabine to sort out the problem of a dozen former Imperial cadets, but she kept an eye on them. A few got reunited with their families and went into hiding. Kali was one of those: she had aunts on her homeworld who cried with joy when they got the call. Three they left in a not-too-dangerous port city to find their way back to the academy. None of them had been happy about that, but they had families to go back to and keeping them against their will was not only wrong, it was a security risk the Rebellion couldn’t afford. 

Some of them didn’t have anywhere to go. Moira and Ezra’s parents were either in Imperial custody or dead. Mikkel had never known his family. The remaining members of the Fourth Brother’s class had families who would want them to go back to the Inquisitors. 

“Four of them,” Kanan said, wonder and exasperation mixing in his voice. “What am I going to do with four kids who might be Force-sensitive?”

“Test them. Train them, or find someone to train them, if they need it,” Hera said. They were in the galley, Kanan sitting with a mug of something warm, Hera smiling and leaning down to put her hands on his shoulders. Kanan made an incoherent sound in his throat, rolling his head back.

“Do you think Ahsoka would take them?” he said plaintively.

“Have you asked?” Hera said.

“I will after I know how many,” Kanan said decisively, and Sabine came all the way in, acting like she’d been invited to this conversation.

“I don’t think Mikkel likes life on a ship much,” she observed. He had been hypersick, it was true, but more than that, he had seemed uncomfortable with the idea of fighting the Empire when she talked about it. “Aysha and Pil’ar still don’t trust us.” She frowned. Aysha still hadn’t recovered from the shock of being removed from the academy, although she had chosen not to go back. She seemed confused, adrift. The only thing Sabine got from Pil’ar was petulant anger, although she seemed to have latched onto Moira. “I think we should stay on base with the others till we figure out how to help them.”

Kanan looked up. “You didn’t mention Ezra,” he said suspiciously.

“Are you kidding me?” Sabine said. “Getting him off this ship is going to be harder than getting rid of a chikk-rat infestation.”

Kanan rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “He’s been fighting with Chopper and Zeb the whole time.”

Sabine snorted. “My point exactly. Made himself right at home. Zeb’s over the moon to have someone to team up against Chopper with, when he isn’t ready to strangle the kid himself.” She let her joking air fall a little. “Besides, he was ready to help back there. No questions asked.” She tapped the table and stood, leaving Kanan to consider her assessment.

She paused outside the galley to listen, though.

“I am not taking a Padawan,” Kanan said, his voice sounding muffled.

“Keep telling yourself that, love.”


End file.
